Xanadu
by Kelex
Summary: Lex realizes that Clark is lying to him.


  
Xanadu--Kel  
  
_"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan  
A stately pleasure-dome decree:  
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran  
In caverns measureless to man,  
Down to a sunless sea."  
--Kubla Khan_, Samuel Taylor Coleridge  
  
Lex contemplated the brandy in his glass and wondered if somehow, alcohol could be considered a modern-day opiate. Of course, brandy _had_ no opium in it, but what the hell did that matter? Things were so rarely what they seemed anyway.  
  
Take, for example, a sixteen year old boy single-handedly drawing up two fully grown men from a collapsing catwalk. Said sixteen year old boy conveniently blames it on adrenaline.  
  
Lex could almost believe that.  
  
Take, for example, a sixteen year old boy who had--by all scientific evidence--ripped the roof off of a car after being hit by said car at sixty miles an hour, and then still have said young boy perform CPR on the driver of said car, all the while professing that he hadn't been hit.  
  
Lex could almost believe that, too.  
  
Except for one small detail.  
  
It was the same boy.  
  
Clark. Clark Kent. Again swirling his brandy, Lex studied the shimmering gold liquid. _Opium is processed into heroin… God knows I did enough of that in the nineties to finance a small processing plant. How do you get from heroin to brandy? You don't._ Lex sighed. _So how do you get from hitting a boy with your car to the same boy pulling you up from a catwalk? You don't… unless he's been lying to you._ Lex sighed again. _This is Clark Kent we're talking about here. Mr. Corn-fed Kansas virtue. So there are two options. Either he's a hell of a lot less virtuous than I think he is, or I need to get a hell of a lot drunker to make the proper connections._ The second course of action sounded plausible to Lex, and he swallowed down the glassful of amber liquid quickly and poured himself a second.   
  
Abruptly, the glass was pulled out of his hand, and he blinked. A moment later, it was back _in_ his hand. He blinked again. Empty. "I know I just filled that up, and I'm not yet drunk enough to lose an entire glass."  
  
"Don't you ever get tired of drinking, Lex?"  
  
The glass shattered against the floor as Lex jumped out of his chair. "Jesus, Clark." Somehow, he was not surprised that the boy had shown up. "Are you _trying_ to give me a heart attack, or just take years off my life?"  
  
"I didn't mean to scare you."  
  
"Of course you didn't. You just decided to come in, steal my brandy, and then jump out of a dark corner and surprise me." Lex put the crystal stopper back in the brandy decanter and re-opened the scotch. "Here, have another," he said, pouring a new glass full of dark brown alcohol and extending it to Clark. "I've got a bit of a head start on you." Clark accepted the glass without saying a word. Lex leaned his hip against the desk, eyes on the young man in silent challenge. Without flinching, Clark deliberately raised the scotch to his lips and drank. It slid smoothly down his throat, and Lex's eyebrow rose. "Closet drinker?"  
  
"My dad's uncle makes a sour mash that you wouldn't be able to choke down."  
  
"And I suppose that you were raised on the stuff?" Lex took the glass and filled it again, passing it back to the young man. He wasn't sure exactly what the plan was yet, but he knew he had one.  
  
"Does it matter?" Clark drank the second glass more slowly than he had the first.  
  
"Nothing is what it seems in Smallville, is it, Clark?" Lex turned back to the liquor sideboard and filled his own glass. Carrying the decanter with him, he set it on the table between him and Clark.  
  
"I don't know what you mean, Lex."  
  
"Of course you don't." Lex leaned back, resting his head on the back of the couch. It still ached where Earl had pistol-whipped him earlier. "And I suppose your parents just let you out of the house at… midnight," he said, pausing to check his watch, "…because we both know just how popular I am with the Kent family."  
  
Clark didn't protest as Lex filled his glass again. "Does it matter?"  
  
Lex slammed his glass down angrily on the table. "That's the second time you've asked me that, Clark. Obviously it matters to me, or else I wouldn't be wasting your time and mine with the question."  
  
"Then no, they don't know. If you have to know, I snuck out of the house. Told them I was going to sleep in the barn because I didn't want to be cooped up inside, and I came here. I squeezed in through the bars and came in through the kitchen, where I always make my deliveries."  
  
Lex studied Clark over the table. He could verify the young man's story by checking the security logs, but he didn't. The look on Clark's face infuriated him though, because it seemed the young man knew that Lex would take him at his word. "So you do know how to lie," was Lex's only comment. Suddenly he realized that the first option--Clark lying to _him_ specifically--was no longer such a far-fetched idea. The boy's next words only confirmed it.  
  
"Better than you know." Clark's glass was empty again, and he reached to fill it.  
  
Lex watched his friend closely for signs of drunkenness. That would be his… Lex had to stop and count briefly… fourth glass. Clark should have been drunk off his ass, or at least no longer sober. "You've been lying to me, haven't you, Clark?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Lex leaned forward, and this time Clark poured Lex's glass full. "And you just admit it. Just like that."  
  
"Just like that."  
  
Apparently Lex wasn't nearly as drunk as he'd thought he was, because the punch he threw at Clark seemed to fly dead on, and impacted against the other boy's jaw. Clark's head barely turned with the blow, and Lex shook his fist, fingers tingling. "I fucking well _know_ I hit you this time," he gritted out through the red blooms of pain.  
  
"Yes, you did."   
  
Clark was unbelievably serene, and Lex wanted to punch the boy again. "And your explanation is?"  
  
Instead of answering, Clark set his glass on the table and caught Lex's wrist in a steely grip. He stared intently at Lex's hand, and then dropped it. "You'll be fine."  
  
"Now you're some kind of human CAT-scan machine?"  
  
There was a ghost of a smirk that hovered around Clark's lips. "More like an X-ray machine."  
  
Lex hurled his glass angrily at his friend, and Clark didn't even flinch as the glass shattered against his shoulder and soaked him in expensive Scotch whiskey. "Is this why you came here tonight, to make cryptic statements and lie to my face? To avoid my questions and then smirk at me when I know you're lying? Is that all I am to you, Clark? Just another one of your lies?"  
  
Clark met Lex's stormy rage with his own serene green gaze. "That's probably the only thing in my life that isn't a lie," he finally said at length. "My feelings for you."  
  
"Lying to yourself now, Clark? Or me again?" Lex refused to shake his hand again, even though it still tingled painfully.   
  
"I'm not lying, Lex." Clark swept the glass shards into his hands and threw them into the fireplace. He stripped off his flannel shirt and folded that over the back of the chair, and then sat back down and sipped from his own glass. "Not about you. Not anymore."  
  
"Not… anymore?" Lex balled up his fist again as he paced. "You're telling me that you've been lying not just _to_ me, but _about_ me?" He couldn't control it; maybe it was all the booze finally working its way through his system, or maybe it was just the buildup of heartache this conversation was causing, but his arm moved again and he swung before he thought. Clark caught the fist as it came at his face and briefly directed it to his chest, where it bounced harmlessly off. Then he moved forward and wrapped Lex in his arms. "Take your hands off me, Clark."  
  
Clark refused. "I'm not letting you go, Lex."  
  
Lex's arms were trapped at his sides by the boy's strength. "What are you, Clark?" Lex demanded hoarsely. "After the shit that we went through tonight, with my father and Earl Jenkins… you fucking well owe me the truth."  
  
Clark's warm hands rubbed Lex's back, one sliding to gently warm the bald man's injured head. "You don't want to know the truth, Lex. Trust me."  
  
Sharp barks of laughter so bitter Lex could almost taste them. "Trust you? You admit you've been lying to me about _everything_ and now you ask me to trust you?"  
  
Clark placed his lips softly on Lex's temple. "I never lied when I said I loved you, Lex." He let the soft kisses flow down Lex's cheek. "I never lied when I said I wanted you." He moved over Lex's mouth, brushing his lips briefly, moving over his other temple. "I never lied about _wanting_ to be honest."  
  
Lex closed his eyes, blood singing angrily in his veins. How could Clark be doing this to him? He looked down at his lover as Clark continued the tender ministrations, and knew he was damned no matter what he did. "How can you do this to me, Clark? Damn the both of us, but I believe you." His arms broke free, fists resting for a brief moment against Clark's chest before flattening out to pull him close. "You lying bastard, I believe you."  
  
"You know me, Lex. Better than anyone," Clark whispered against Lex's skin.   
  
"I don't know you at all," Lex snarled. His arms came up between them, shoving Clark backwards. Clark allowed it, giving up his balance and slamming into the wall beside the fireplace. Lex's hands pushed into Clark's shoulders, pinning him to the wall. Again Clark allowed it, and it infuriated Lex even further that he was denied rage. "Do you even feel pain, Clark?" Lex's hands hooked into claws, dragging his nails over Clark's chest, trying to mar the flawless flesh that hid under white cotton.  
  
Clark's hands caught Lex's in mid-scrape. "Every time we do this," Clark admitted, his voice suddenly throaty. "Every time we make hate together like this instead of love, it hurts me."  
  
Lex jerked his hands away from Clark, once more feeling the strength that held him and cursing the fact that he couldn't even control his own movements around Clark. Then suddenly Clark let him go, and Lex's fingers curled savagely into his hair, jerking him down. Their kiss was angry and raw, Lex's rage finding an outlet as his teeth tore into the soft underside of Clark's lip, growing more and more furious as he couldn't even tear this soft skin apart. Clark made him feel weak, and then the large man's hands pushed him a half-step back as Clark's teeth worked at the underside of his own lip. He grunted softly then Lex glued their mouths back together, sucking at the blood that flowed from the ripped skin of Clark's lip. His grip should have been ripping Clark's hair out but wasn't, and he raked the nails of one hand down Clark's cheek. He wanted to lay Clark's skin open, see him bleed physically to pay for the pain he inflicted with every lie. The sweet elixir of Clark's blood soon petered out from his torn lip, and his tongue thrust wildly into Clark's passive mouth. "Goddamn you, Clark, fight back. Don't make this about me, make it about what this does to both of us," Lex grunted as he broke the kiss and licked the blood from his lips.  
  
Clark's eyes darkened. "What it does to both of us? Selfish, Lex, if you don't think I don't live with this every second of every day." He licked his own lips, seeking the traces of his own blood. "You think I don't die inside every time I look at you and know that I'm lying to my lover?" He took a step closer to Lex, and in a swift motion, Lex was dangling from Clark's fists, held in mid-air by inhuman strength. "You think it doesn't twist the knife in my gut every time I look at you and see the distrust and the wheels turning and know that with a few words I could erase it forever while at the same time risking the loss of everything I care about?" He dropped Lex to the couch. "It's _never_ just about you."  
  
Lex was on his feet again in moments, standing face to face with Clark. "Hurts, doesn't it? Knowing that you're not trusted? Knowing that your lover--the only person you've ever entrusted your fucking heart to--doesn't think you're good enough to know everything. Burns like a bitch in heat, doesn't it, Clark?" A bitter smile turned the corner of his lips. "Welcome to my world, lover."  
  
Clark's eyes glittered like emeralds as they fastened on Lex. "And if you knew the whole truth, what would you do with it? Lock it up in a vault somewhere? It would be in your _head,_ Lex, all the fucking _time._ It would always be _there,_ and every time you see me it wouldn't be Clark, oh no, you'd be looking at me through the eyes of truth and what would you think of me then?" He advanced on Lex, green eyes still glinting in the firelight.   
  
"Go ahead, Clark. Hurt me the way I've hurt you," Lex badgered. "At least one of us can." A malicious spike of painful pleasure flared inside him when he saw Clark wince. "Break me in half, it can't be that hard for someone like you."  
  
"Someone like me," Clark spit out the words like they were poison. "Do you even know what that means, Lex?"  
  
"Fucking tell me." He was finally standing face to face with Clark again, his hands knotted in the t-shirt that stretched over the young man's chest. "Tell me now and this never happens again."  
  
A hopeful spark flared in Clark's eyes, and Lex could have either cheered or cursed. "All right. I'll do anything to end this." He swung Lex into his arms. "Put your arms around my neck and hold on."  
  
"Where are we going?"  
  
"To my family's storm cellar. That's where the story starts." Without another word of explanation, Clark was running.  
  
Lex closed his eyes and fought the nausea. This was totally unlike flying in one of his cars; he was safe and in control of the steel monster, but in this… the monster was Clark and Lex was most definitely not the one in control. Almost before his thoughts ended so did the ride. He watched in silence as Clark single-handedly flung open the cellar doors, and started down the steps. He followed the young man down into the earth, and shielded his eyes when the overhead light bulb flicked on.  
  
"What in the name of God?" Lex ran his hands over the sleek lines of the metal… ship that rested in the storm cellar. The surface was burnished smooth, and something thrummed at the edge of his consciousness as he caressed the strange craft.  
  
"This is the truth you wanted," Clark bit out. "You wanted to know." He gestured with his hands, encompassing the ship with a single motion. "Here it is."  
  
Lex put both hands on the bow of the ship, trying to listen hard to the whispering at the edge of his thoughts. "What the hell?"  
  
"It's my ship," Clark answered, giving no further information. He climbed back up the steps and shut the doors, locking them into the cellar.   
  
"Your… you built this?" Lex couldn't seem to stop caressing the sweeping lines, the odd angles, hoping that every second of contact would somehow unlock the voices trying to speak to him.  
  
Cynical laughter. "I landed in it."  
  
"Landed?" Lex's hand encountered a small dip, where a piece was obviously missing, and he pressed his palm over it. "Holy hell, Clark." He looked up to see Clark's head down on his knees, shoulders shaking. Pulling himself away from the mesmerizing ship, he shoved on Clark's shoulder, trying to see his face.   
  
The young man's head flew back, and great gales of bitter laughter erupted. "Fucking priceless. You wanted my big secret, you wanted this huge truth, and you can't even believe it. Christ Almighty." Tears ran down Clark's face. "I'm the lover from another planet, and you're fascinated with the damn ship."  
  
Lex stepped back from Clark, amazed. "This isn't a joke?"  
  
If Clark's head had snapped up any faster, Lex would've sworn he'd heard vertebrae click. "A joke? A _joke?_ I give you what you want, and you think it's a fucking _joke!_" Clark snarled. "This is my _life,_ Lex. Not some freaky cosmic joke!"  
  
Lex sat back, resting against the curved hull of the ship. "Not a joke. You're an alien. No wonder you can do this shit."  
  
"Got it in one, Lex." Sarcastic applause followed that comment. "MENSA level IQ pays off again, huh?"  
  
Lex's rage had been filtered through the shock of this sudden revelation, and Clark's words wounded as they were meant to, bringing the anger back. "How the hell was I supposed to know, Clark? You were lying to me at every turn!"  
  
"That was kinda the point! _Nobody,_ not even the great Lex Luthor himself, was supposed to know about this!" Clark felt like destroying something, Lex could tell from the rhythmic clenching and unclenching of his fists. "Do you know just what could happen, Lex? If anyone found out? What they'd do to Mom and Dad, what they'd do to _me?_"  
  
Fear of discovery was something that Lex understood, for entirely different reasons. "You should have told me, Clark. I could help protect you." Then he narrowed his eyes. "Or do you think your father is right about me after all?"  
  
"Fuck you if you can still ask me that!" Clark shouted. "After all this bullshit, if you can still ask me if I think my father's right about you… just fuck you!!" Clark couldn't suppress the anger that filled him any longer, and he punched a hole through the stone floor of the storm cellar.   
  
Lex flinched and raised his arm to shield himself from the pieces of splintering bedrock as Clark's fist drilled through it. Several shards nicked his cheek, and he raised his free hand to check for blood. His fingertips came away dotted with red, and he looked at Clark through the settling dust. "Feel better?"  
  
"Did you after you hit me?" Clark countered.  
  
"No."  
  
"All right then." Then his eyes narrowed. "You're hurt." In two strides he was in Lex's space, inspecting the damage.   
  
"They're only flesh wounds."  
  
"My fault," Clark said, leaning over and licking the flecks of blood from Lex's cheek. "I hurt you."  
  
"In more ways than one."  
  
"Then we're even."  
  
"Does this have to be a fucking competition, Clark?"  
  
"You were the one who threw down the challenge, Lex."  
  
Suddenly Lex was bone weary and emotionally exhausted. The rollercoaster came to a screeching halt. "This isn't about who hurt who the most or the longest, Clark. This _is_ about stopping it. I don't know about you, but Jesus… isn't it enough yet?" He held out his arms, wrists up. "Haven't we poured out enough blood?"  
  
Clark remained standing where he was as Lex slumped against the side of the ship. "I never liked hurting you, Lex. Never wanted to do it."  
  
"I know, Clark." And he did know. "For what it's worth, I never did either."  
  
"Is this goodbye?"  
  
Lex raised tired eyes to meet Clark's, seeing not just a mirroring exhaustion but suddenly realizing that Clark had burdens to bear far beyond his years. "Never goodbye, Clark." Something he'd said in anger earlier, he repeated in quiet truthfulness now. "You are the only one I've ever trusted my heart to; I can't say goodbye." He held out his hand to Clark, relieved when it was engulfed in two larger ones.  
  
"Do you want to?" Clark wouldn't release Lex's hand or his eyes. "I'm not asking if you can or not, Lex. I'm asking do you want to say goodbye."  
  
Lex closed his eyes, leaning his head forward until it rested against Clark's solid stomach. "No. I don't want to."  
  
One hand released Lex's to gently stroke the back of his head. "Then I'll never let you say goodbye to me," came the soft whisper. "I love you, too."  
  
Lex felt himself gathered into gentle arms and carried back to his bedroom by his lover. Clark undressed Lex, and put him into bed on the cool cotton sheets, then stripped and slid in beside Lex. Just before sleep overtook him, Lex realized that both their souls were as bare as their bodies, and the wounds just as raw. He turned to bury his face in Clark's throat, and found himself nestled tightly against Clark's chest. They fell asleep tangled together, seeking security in each other's arms.  
  
The End  
  


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